Title: A visual interactive optimisation tool for analysing alternate locations for petroleum distribution facilities: towards building an intelligent Decision-Support System

Authors: Pejman Hassanzadeh, Manbir Sodhi, Vaidyanathan Jayaraman

Addresses: Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI, USA. ' Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI, USA. ' School of Business Administration, Department of Management, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL, USA

Abstract: This paper describes an intelligent Decision-Support System developed to analyse alternate locations for petroleum distribution so that delivery, storage and dispatching costs can be considered jointly with potential environmental risks. It consists of a visual, modelling environment that allows decision-makers to describe problems and a knowledge-based component that interacts with users to generate and explore alternatives during decision-making iterations. Given the run-up in petroleum costs and the disruptive effect of environmental phenomena such as hurricanes, such assessments may be beneficial where tradeoffs between environmental risks and operating costs must be evaluated.

Keywords: mathematical programming; modelling; visual interactive optimisation; intelligent DSS; decision support systems; GIS; geographical information systems; alternative locations; petroleum distribution facilities; delivery costs; storage costs; dispatching costs; potential environmental risks; operating costs; knowledge-based systems; KBS.

DOI: 10.1504/IJOR.2009.021615

International Journal of Operational Research, 2009 Vol.4 No.1, pp.1 - 22

Published online: 30 Nov 2008 *

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